Syria: We Don’t Need No Stinking Badges

The following is an excerpt from Official Stories, detailing the reality of now. Invasions of seven countries in the Middle East in 10 years, as per Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the PNAC signatories. And Barack Obama:

In 2004, Wesley Clark, another generally honest General, with an only slightly amusing name, ran for president. He was a good soldier. He followed orders and did the dirty business of war. But, he believed in the principle that war is fought to preserve liberty – not to suppress it.

By 2007, after 7 years of the Bush Doctrine, he’d seen more than even his conservative streak could bear to suppress. And he spilled his guts in a speech to a press club in San Francisco. It went like this.

In 1991, Wesley was a one-star general. He’d just come back from the Iraq invasion. They didn’t “get” Saddam. They left that old CIA-trained-and-funded warlord in power. Was it a mistake? (It was a mistake for Americans to be in Iraq in the first place. Where do all empires go to die? The Middle East).

Clark was in the Pentagon and decided to look in on Paul Wolfowitz, who was undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Wolfowitz is a Zionist Jew – one who believes that…Oh, should we do this quickly? In the first chapter?

Oy vey. Fine. Alright. Zionism. It’s a fundamentalism; in other words, it’s a philosophy which reads as literal a group of ancient religious texts or principles. In this case, that Yahweh promised a certain bit of property to the children of Israel, so that’s how it’s going to be now. Fundamentalisms aren’t particular to Judaism; all religions have one or more. Fundamentalist Christians believe that a Jewish rabbi (“Yeshua” or “Jesus”) will come back to destroy all the wicked people and bring the good ones to eternal bliss, or a kind of cloudy place in the sky (sorry, it’s not my myth, I lean East.).

Fundamentalist Muslims believe that, well, if they kill someone in a holy war then they go to heaven which is filled with a lot of virgins. Girls, I assume. Which I don’t really understand, because if you want to have good sex, experience is what you’re after. Twenty-seven and above, you know? But really, thirty-two and older.

And so on. Every group has its fundamentalism. And some have many. Orthodox Jews, for being fundamentalists or Biblical literalists, aren’t all Zionists. But Zionism is an orthodoxy, a literalism. And it goes like this:

“We will have the real estate promised to the children of Israel. We are the chosen people. No one can oppose us. We are the children of God. And if you don’t like that, we’ll invade your country, use tactical assassinations, missile strikes and nuclear bombs.” (The nukes are, so far, only a threat, thank goodness, but the rest is real). So, where Zionism and politics meet, you’ve got a way of thinking that gives into a pretty vicious, self-righteous imperial stance; just like Manifest Destiny, or the edict of Julius Caesar. It’s not new, it’s typical.

Shaka Zulu practiced a similar “join or die” method of conquest. Just like Attila, Genghis or the British Raj. I’m not just picking on Zionism. I’m acknowledging it. It’s an active form of imperial thought. I think it hides behind the flag of Judaism. I think a lot of Jews aren’t quite up to the task of seeing it yet; that a spiritual practice is a very different thing than an imperial policy.

But, I digress. Back to Wolfowitz. He’s a Zionist. Ardent pro-Israel, in the sense of, like I said, God-given right and if you oppose us, you die. Not that Israel shouldn’t exist – only that it should probably let others exist too. But, that’s for other books to argue. Right. Focus. Paul Wolfowitz. Zionist.

So, Wesley says to Wolfowitz, “Sir, you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm?”

And Wolfowitz says, “Yeah, but not really. The truth is we should have gotten rid of Hussein, but didn’t. But we learned that we can use our military in the Middle East and the Soviets won’t stop us. We’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes – Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

Good soldier Wesley was confused: “The purpose of the military is to start wars and change governments?” He asked himself, “We’re gonna start conflicts? It’s not to deter conflict?”

Ten years later, just weeks after 9/11, now five-star General Wesley Clark is back in the Pentagon, this time talking to Donald Rumsfeld. Do you know Donald? He’s a chemical mogul, Secretary of Warfare (or, “Defense”) and bringer of Nutrasweet. His pals call him “Rummy.” He’s in his normal fugue state, making sense to no one but himself, wrinkling his forehead, squeezing his temples and pulling the strings of power, while distracting you with his bird-like hands. Wesley says to him, “Am I doing okay on CNN?”

And Rumsfeld says, damn it, we don’t need no stinking badges. He says, “Nobody’s gonna tell us where or when we can bomb, nobody. I’m thinking of calling this a floating coalition.”

Wesley goes to talk to an officer from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who says, “I want you to know, sir, we’re going to attack Iraq.” Wesley says, “Why?” Officer: “We don’t know.” Wesley: “Did they tie Saddam to 9/11?” Officer: “No, but they think they can attack states and they want to look strong.”

Six weeks later Wesley returns and asks the officer, “Are we still going to attack Iraq?” The officer says, “Sir, it’s worse than that. I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments of seven countries in five years. We’re gonna start with Iraq and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

Now, look over your shoulder. 9/11 led to an invasion of…Saudi Arabia? Where 15 of the hijackers came from? No, too powerful. We can’t destabilize our number one totalitarian oil supplier.

No, “we” (not you and me, but the people who steal our tax money to give to teenagers to go kill people elsewhere) invaded Afghanistan. Former Russian Satellite. Iraq. Former Russian Satellite. Libya. Syria. What’s next? Iran. It’s Wolfowitz renewed. Wolfowitz in action – which makes sense, because Wolfowitz was part of the planning committee in the 1990s. Something called the “Project for a New American Century.” But we’ll get to that.

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Official Stories

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